GoogleReader: Serial Entrepreneur Stuart Skorman on the Attraction of a Good Story http://bit.ly/fpMlx

GoogleReader: Obama's 10 Leadership Mistakes (And How Not to Make Them)

Experts are a dime a dozen but authorities are priceless

I'm coaching a group of solopreneurs through the Book Yourself Solid system and we're currently working on the section "Who Knows What You Know And Do They Like You?", about building trust and credibility with potential clients.

One of the questions that Michael Port asks in his book is "In what areas are you currently an expert?"

The word "expert" often brings up lots of energy (usually negative) because of the association between expertise and knowledge. But is there a real connection between expertise and education?

When I was an engineering officer in the Canadian Air Force, I had advanced degrees in my field. I could design lens arrays and calculate resolution errors. I could program image recognition algorithms and write the specifications for a video processing system. But when it came to troubleshooting and fixing the complex equipment in the lab or on our aircraft, I could not hold a candle to my technicians. I swear, just by looking at the gadget and shaking it a bit, they could figure out what was wrong and get it working again in a snap, whether the problem was mechanical, electrical or electronic.

I could design the equipment, but they knew how to build it, get it to work and keep it going in tip-top shape through punishing use. Which skill set was the most useful to our lab's clients?

My gut reaction when someone claims to be an "expert" is to say "oh yeah? Prove it! Show me your papers!" I bet your prospects feel the same way, because they are bombarded by so many who claim to be experts. Then your prospect starts playing the credential game with you. Yuck.

I don't want clients who doubt my experience. And the way to do this is to shift the energy by moving from being just another expert to being an authority

Here's one of my Davenderisms:

"An expert is someone who has mastered a lot of knowledge. An authority has the bruises and scars that prove the knowledge really works."

In my lab, I was an expert because of my education, but our clients (and I) trusted the technicians even more because they had authority based on their ability to create results. I was necessary to the operation of the lab, but they were indispensable.

And with my current entrepreneurial coaching business, I can state that I am an authority on being a solo professional and a startup entrepreneur because I lived the startup and cratering of two businesses (one solo practice and one larger tech business) before realizing that I had to ignore conventional wisdom in order to succeed in building a successful network marketing biz and now my current coaching and training biz.

Of course I've taken the courses and the trainings and got my qualifications, but when I relate my personal story, I can see my prospect is much more impressed with my real-life experience as compared to my qualifications.

Show your prospects how you have lived your expertise. Then they will follow you to the ends of the earth...

Your Business Card: Is it working for you?

Tip: Your business card is an important and inexpensive tool to build trust and credibility as a solo-professional. Here are some tips to make your card work for you:

• Essential info to include on the front of the card: Name, phone#, email, web site, positioning statement.
• Only include primary degrees or qualifications (don't have a long alphabet soup of letters after your name. Showing off too many certifications may denote insecurity about yourself)
• If you work from home, don't put your mailing address, unless you receive clients at your home office. This avoids junk mail. Also, with Google Maps people can find you too easily and arrive at certain conclusions depending on which area of town you live in. If a contact absolutely needs my postal address, I can give it to them separately by e-mail or writing on the back of the card.
  
• If you do consulting or knowledge work, include a 1-800 toll-free number. It's inexpensive (ask me how) and denotes professionalism and that your clients are not only local (builds credibility)
  
• Avoid fancy logos, extra flaps, foil stamping. When in doubt, stay conservative and keep your cards simple and sober. The best people carry simple business cards because they don't need to show off.
  
• Use thick card stock, contrasting colors.White or light-colored backgrounds are easy to read, even in the poor lighting of networking events.
  
• Make it easy to read. If it scans accurately with an OCR like CardScan it's a good layout.

Podcast: Got Mojo? The Spark That Makes Your Product Come Alive

What is "Mojo"?

Mojo is the passion of the message that attracts people to what you're creating and to listen to what you have to say...

Mojo is the spark that gives a product a life of its own...

Mojo is what transforms your product from "just another e-book/teleclass/web site" to something that stands out and gets people to take notice...

Mojo is the personality of your product that makes people go "WOW"...

Your product is more than a "product": it is a commitment to who you are and what you stand for. Your product communicates your passion, your personality, your particular spark.

A product can be well-designed, well-built and of high-quality, but without Mojo it will have trouble succeeding. Mojo is what brings your product to life.

In this call, we'll explore the various elements of finding, caring for, and feeding your Product's Mojo.

You'll discover simple practices and attitudes that you can use every day to plug into the passion that you have for your concept, and set in motion the magical power that transforms your Product from Passion to Profit.

Listen to mp3 RT 53m18s 6.1MB:
http://audio.davender.com/pf3/mojo_01nov2005.mp3

Three cheers for the prosperity mindset!

Are "profits" and "wealth" falling out of fashion?

Our society is ill because the economy has been rigged to reward those who speculate rather than support those who demonstrate innovation and initiative.

For the individual that comes face-to-face with this harsh reality , the concept of "voluntary simplicity" or "simple living" can seem like a way to take back control of one's life. A concept popular in Europe and Quebec, this downsizing trend is spreading across the US and Canada as a reaction to the overconsumption mania of the last few decades.

The danger that I see in trying to reduce one's life to fit one's means is that it can lead to a trap. Living small or thinking small is not a virtue if it takes away the joy of living, if it makes fear and guilt the driving emotions of life. I prefer another path: instead of reducing consumption in order to live within my means, I choose to increase my means in order that I may live my full potential. Instead of "voluntary simplicity", I choose "voluntary prosperity".

We have a duty to be prosperous: to generate all of the resources necessary to live to our full potential, so we can do good for ourselves, our family, our community, our environment and our planet.

Living a monk's life by shirking our responsibilities is a selfish luxury at this moment. The challenges facing humanity and the planet are far too big and too important to sit cross-legged and contemplate the universe. The intertwined futures of humanity and the planet depend on how we create wealth from now on.

Even one of the inspirations of the simple living movement, Buddhism, celebrates prosperity. According to Buddhist teachings, you are entitled to as much wealth as you want, provided it is created in an ethical manner, "like bees create honey without harming the flowers". The wealth you create must then be reinvested to benefit as much others as oneself. Therefore, proper wealth, resources created the right way, is a tool to do good. (1)

Many of the economic problems we face today come from the fact that people are clinging to their gains as if they were an acquired right. They fear losing their riches, because wealth is finite, and you must grab your share now before there is none left.

Scarcity thinking is at the foundation of classical economics: that homo economicus is driven by the core emotions of greed and fear: less a resource is available, demand then increases because people want to hoard it for fear of missing out, and prices increase. Those who control the production of the resource can then speculate and "earn" their paycheck.

But deep down, is it still true, especially today?

Although we live on a finite planet with limits to our natural resources, this does not necessarily mean that there is a limit to wealth. The economist Paul Zane Pilzer in his book "The Next Millionaires" (2) postulates that each time we face a crisis due to the lack of a natural resource, humanity usually figures a way to solve the problem.

According to Pilzer, it is not resources that determine wealth, but rather the creativity and innovation of the human brain, combined with the initiative to take action, what Pilzer calls our "technology". The fundamental equation of the economy becomes:

Wealth = Resources * Technology

Now that our knowledge and imagination grows at an exponential rate thanks to the explosion of interpersonal communications, our ability to create wealth also accelerates at breakneck speed.

My definition of success is "to create a life experience that allows us to live our full potential." With the voluntary prosperity mindset, wealth is created when deploying our resources, our innovation and our initiative to do good for ourselves, others and the environment so we can all live to our full potential. More we act to create success, more those who are positively affected by these actions are prepared to invest their time, energy and money to live even more success. This becomes a virtuous cycle.

The voluntary prosperity mindset means choosing to engage with others, to communicate, learn, innovate and take action to confront the obstacles that we face and overcome them in a constructive manner.

The voluntary prosperity mindset is to create projects that help our community and our environment to live their full potential.

The voluntary prosperity mindset is having a sense of optimism, aiming for the stars with big ideas and bold plans, but acting with feet on the ground, to generate positive and powerful results by maximizing the resources we have available right now.

Ultimately, the question we must ask ourselves is this: What is our attitude towards material possessions? As an acquired right and a reward that flatters the ego, or as tools to advance our mission, our vision and our values and create a positive difference around us? Our emotions with respect to the resources available to us, will determine our ability to succeed in adopting a voluntary prosperity mindset.

The more we give, the more we put into circulation the ultimate power, that of passion,which creates a win-win benefit for all: an experience of life that allows each one of us to express our full potential.

And this is the true imperative: living to our full potential. This is why it is so important to stop downsizing our lives and start adopting a voluntary prosperity mindset, one that encourages each one of us to take action and create a happy, healthy and wealthy future for all.



__________

(1) "The Buddha's Teachings on Prosperity: At Home, At Work, in the World" by Bhikkhu Rahula Basnagoda and Arthur C. Clarke

(2) "The Next Millionaires" by Paul Zane Pilzer

To join or not to join (WebWorkerDaily)

An interesting article (that I agree with) on WebWorkerDaily:

“We all need to make choices about how we spend our time, and you should not feel pressured to join a social site just because other people have joined. Think about how you want to spend your time and decide whether or not you want to spend less time on another activity to make more time to participate on Twitter or Facebook. There’s no need for everyone to join.”
- Dawn Foster

Link to article: To Join, or Not to Join: That Is the Question
http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/08/05/to-join-or-not-to-join-that-is-the-question/

Tip: How to share documents on Facebook

I received a question about "how to share a PowerPoint file with a Facebook group".

If you have access to an FTP server where you can simply upload your document, then use it. This is the option I usually use.

If you don't have an FTP server, here is a simple and secure way to share any document, whether by Facebook or even by e-mail:

1. Get a Google Docs account https://docs.google.com/
2. Upload your file by clicking on "Upload"

Types of files that you can upload:

Documents (up to 500KB)

HTML files and plain text (.txt). Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), Rich Text (.rtf), OpenDocument Text (.odt) and StarOffice (.sxw).

Presentations (up to 10MB from your computer, 2MB from the web, 500KB via email)

Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps).

Spreadsheets (up to 1MB)

Comma Separated Value (.csv). Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx) files and OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods).

PDF Files (up to 10MB from your computer, 2MB from the web)

3. Once your file has been uploaded to Google Docs, open it in Google Docs

4. You will see a "Share" button on the upper right hand side of your screen. Click it to see a drop-down menu. You will see an option "Publish/embed". Click it.

5. You now are at a page titled "Publish this document/presentation". Find and click on the button "Publish document".

6. A new page will appear with a link you can use to share the document by Facebook or e-mail.

PowerPoint docs will appear in a viewer, which is good because viewing the document is not dependent on the end-user.

Alternative: You may see with certain docs the option "Get the link to share..." If you use that link, the document will open with Google Docs (depending on the access you allow).

Hope this helps!